ETH Zurich, Center for Comparative and International Studies and Institute for Environmental Decisions, Haldeneggsteig 4, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland.
Transgenic Res. 2011 Dec;20(6):1227-34. doi: 10.1007/s11248-011-9486-x. Epub 2011 Jan 30.
Field trials with GM crops are not only plant science experiments. They are also social experiments concerning the implications of government imposed regulatory constraints and public opposition for scientific activity. We assess these implications by estimating additional costs due to government regulation and public opposition in a recent set of field trials in Switzerland. We find that for every Euro spent on research, an additional 78 cents were spent on security, an additional 31 cents on biosafety, and an additional 17 cents on government regulatory supervision. Hence the total additional spending due to government regulation and public opposition was around 1.26 Euros for every Euro spent on the research per se. These estimates are conservative; they do not include additional costs that are hard to monetize (e.g. stakeholder information and dialogue activities, involvement of various government agencies). We conclude that further field experiments with GM crops in Switzerland are unlikely unless protected sites are set up to reduce these additional costs.
田间试验不仅是植物科学实验，也是关于政府强制实施监管限制和公众反对对科学活动的影响的社会实验。我们通过估计瑞士最近一系列田间试验中由于政府监管和公众反对而产生的额外成本来评估这些影响。我们发现，每花费 1 欧元用于研究，就会额外花费 78 欧分用于安全措施，额外花费 31 欧分用于生物安全，以及额外花费 17 欧分用于政府监管监督。因此，由于政府监管和公众反对而产生的总额外支出约为每花费 1 欧元用于研究本身的 1.26 欧元。这些估计是保守的；它们不包括难以货币化的额外成本（例如利益相关者信息和对话活动，各政府机构的参与）。我们的结论是，除非建立受保护的地点以降低这些额外成本，否则瑞士不太可能进一步进行转基因作物的田间试验。
